Congrats! YOU are now the...

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

I respectfully disagree.

Hong Kong... Wednesday at Happy Valley, Sunday at Sha Tin.

Great horses, jockeys, big fields, huge payouts... maybe it wouldn't work here but it sure does there.

Our version of the industry would crumble with racing two days per week at just two tracks.

Originally Posted by Travis Stone

Our version of the industry would crumble with racing two days per week at just two tracks.

In order to crumble there would need to be a foundation.

[Travis Stone]

Originally Posted by Coach Pants

In order to crumble there would need to be a foundation.

Very true.

I get the need for the contraction. One or two days a week would probably be powerful, but for a game that still generates $30 million in gross handle on a Wednesday and Thurs, $40 mil on a Fri, $50-60 mil on an average Saturday... I think the week-long model can work... but right now, we're over-doing it. 15 tracks on a Saturday is insane.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Nothing will ever improve - and the decline will only continue - until the sport can shed its label as a bigtime suckers game.

Meaningful takeout reductions and big rebates just haven't been attempted by any tracks - and betting exchanges are the last great hope for turning the tide... but you know this industry will screw that up. How can anyone have even a morsel of faith?

ESPN and all the Fox Sports stations gets absolutely spammed with poker shows .. because more people care about watching a replay of the 2006 Golden Palace.Com tournament of Tards - or the 2008 Celebrity Showdown - than they do about the Haskell or Whitney.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Nothing will ever improve - and the decline will only continue - until the sport can shed its label as a bigtime suckers game.

Meaningful takeout reductions and big rebates just haven't been attempted by any tracks - and betting exchanges are the last great hope for turning the tide... but you know this industry will screw that up. How can anyone have even a morsel of faith?

(emphasis added)

I don't think even reduced takeout can make a difference. When Ellis reduced takeout on it's Pick-4's to 4% for an entire meet 2 years ago, it hardly made a difference. People preferred the 20%+ takeouts at the "big" tracks. How much did Pimlico's recent experiment with lowered takeout raise handle? Not much.

--Dunbar

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

(emphasis added)

I don't think even reduced takeout can make a difference. When Ellis reduced takeout on it's Pick-4's to 4% for an entire meet 2 years ago, it hardly made a difference. People preferred the 20%+ takeouts at the "big" tracks. How much did Pimlico's recent experiment with lowered takeout raise handle? Not much.

--Dunbar

I don't think that these two experiments really are what drgs was refering to when he talked of meaningful reductions in handle. It is really hard to get people to bet a C level signal that they dont follow with any real money simply because one bet has a reduced handle for a few weeks.

Giving people more money back when they win can only help. The question is can the handle rise enough to allow the parties that give up their share of the takeout to at least break even? Over the long term it probably could but this is a business where longterm thinking is non-existent and most of the execs at the corporate owned tracks are just trying to stay employed.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I don't think that these two experiments really are what drgs was refering to when he talked of meaningful reductions in handle. It is really hard to get people to bet a C level signal that they dont follow with any real money simply because one bet has a reduced handle for a few weeks.

Yep.

Ellis Park was up against Saratoga and Del Mar - and I believe they did see a big handle increase as there P4 pools were pretty minimal prior to that one-meet expierment.

I believe Pimlico was also up against Saratoga and Del Mar when they tried it for something like 10 or 12 racing days.

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

... ESPN and all the Fox Sports stations gets absolutely spammed with poker shows .. because more people care about watching a replay of the 2006 Golden Palace.Com tournament of Tards - or the 2008 Celebrity Showdown - than they do about the Haskell or Whitney.

I agree with the implication that more TV exposure would help horseracing. One of the main reasons poker is so popular is the familiarity of the big players. We recognize Brunson, Negraneau, Helmuth, Ivey, et al. Horseracing retires almost all of its budding stars almost as soon as they become slightly recognizable names. That's why if I were Racing Czar I'd change the breeding rules so that no horse could breed until it was 5 years old, regardless of whether its injured or "injured".

MMSC didn't explicitly say how far my Czardom extended, but even if it was just North America, I'd put the 5-yr-old minimum into effect here. Horses bred from a younger sire or mare would be ineligible to race in the US or Canada.

--Dunbar

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

I agree with the implication that more TV exposure would help horseracing. One of the main reasons poker is so popular is the familiarity of the big players. We recognize Brunson, Negraneau, Helmuth, Ivey, et al. Horseracing retires almost all of its budding stars almost as soon as they become slightly recognizable names. That's why if I were Racing Czar I'd change the breeding rules so that no horse could breed until it was 5 years old, regardless of whether its injured or "injured".

MMSC didn't explicitly say how far my Czardom extended, but even if it was just North America, I'd put the 5-yr-old minimum into effect here. Horses bred from a younger sire or mare would be ineligible to race in the US or Canada.

--Dunbar

Your rule wouldn't help much. The stars of the sport need to be people, not horses. The only thing your rule would do would lead to more campaigns like we are seeing out of our "stars" this year. Or lead horses to start later in life which causes owners to lose more money and horses to be less prepared to run more often.

[Port Conway Lane]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Your rule wouldn't help much. The stars of the sport need to be people, not horses. The only thing your rule would do would lead to more campaigns like we are seeing out of our "stars" this year. Or lead horses to start later in life which causes owners to lose more money and horses to be less prepared to run more often.

Maybe if people unfamiliar with handicapping learned how to play the game it would attract their interest. TVG and HRTV throw out numbers but that does not teach anyone.

It would be difficult to make a show interesting and educational without the human interaction of poker.